


The Uncertainty Principle

by Void (EroEmo)



Series: The Multiverse Theory [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternative Universe - profession swap, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Hermann the Neuroscientist, M/M, Newt the Physicist, beside profession swap the rest is canon compliant, but they're both dorks in the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 21:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14221794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EroEmo/pseuds/Void
Summary: Maybe in another universe, if the the multiverse was true, he was the kaiju enthusiast and Hermann was the collected mathematician.This, however, wasn't the one.





	The Uncertainty Principle

All his life, he was a walking paradox.

His uncle was kind enough to take him under his roof, to bring him up and give at least a tiny bit of the feeling of belonging. He had spent a lot of his childhood either in his bedroom or somewhere quiet, trying to engage himself into activities that would push aside unpleasant thoughts and feelings. That he was unwanted. That no one from his peers found him a good company.

He was very often annoying. Extremely loud. Obnoxious. Proud and confident on the border of being a narcissist.

But he also was brilliant and intelligent. Willing to learn new things, either in or outside the school’s building.

What everyone seemed to be surprised by was him as a person and not one-dimensional figure on the student’s list. He couldn’t really understand why, though maybe not really. It was more like he was able to understand, to some degree, but still couldn’t comprehend why people reacted the way they did. To the fact that yes, he got enormously vast tattoos. Yes, he had a band. Yes, he couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes. And yes, he had six doctorates in math, theoretical physics, cosmology and alike.

“Newton!” Hermann yelled from his side of the lab, his hands elbow deep in some sort of alien tissue. “Could you please turn the volume down? My ears are _bleeding.”_

“Aw, c’mon man!” He said, jumping off his ladder. “The probability of your ears bleeding from such _classics_ are, like, close to zero and besides, Sex Pistols are much better than _your_ music choices, so just you know-”

“If you call this, this-” Hermann took some slimy thing out of the kaiju part and put it on a nearby table. _Yuck._ “- _monstrosity_ music then I’d advise you to have your hearing checked.”

See, his whole life he had thought he was a singularity, a thing that could not be defined with known laws of nature. He was odd, the mismatched piece of a puzzle.

And then he met Hermann.  


* * *  


Pentecost and Herc came to their crumbled lab, wanting answers. And oh boy, Newt was more than ready to give them what they wanted. He was so damn _thrilled_ about what he managed to discover, about the double event, about-

“Hermann, man, could you, um, take that gross thing to your side? I mean, I don’t mind, but I’d rather _not_ slip on some slick blue guts.”

Hermann rolled his eyes and tucked at the said guts with his cane, bringing it to his side, only to carefully put it on one of the tables he had nearby.

“Okay, so!” Newt turned with a smile to their visitors, clasping his hands and creating a dense cloud of chalk in front of him. “Gentlemen, I’m about to show you something so so _amazing,_ like I couldn’t believe when I saw it, so like, I doubled checked if my calculations are correct but of course they _were,_ I mean I never do-”

“Dr. Geiszler,” Pentecost said, politely yet firmly. “Concretes, please.”

“Yeah, so all things considered, I’m pretty sure we are about to witness a _double_ event, and then a _triple_ one, and then, well, things are about to get _real ugly_.”

“And by that you mean we’re dead,” Pentecost nodded, reducing up Newt’s exciting news to something so _trivial._

“But that’s where good news comes!”

He rushed to his desk, a holographic model of the Bridge illuminating his face.

“So we’re here, and their dimension is down here, right? And here is this passage we would like to shut down for good, and the thing is that, because there is lots of monsters to show up in the short amount time, it has to _stabilize itself_ to let them through,” Newt grinned at his supervisors, circling with his hand to show the symbol of the bomb. “Long story short, it should be stable enough for you to send those aliens our little surprise-”

“Should?” Herc raised his eyebrow at him.

“I need something more than prediction, Dr. Geiszler,” Pentecost frowned and it was not the reaction Newt was expecting from them but again, could anyone be sure about anything in this world where God apparently plays dice?

“That’s the problem with his field, you see,” Hermann interrupted from his side of the lab, leaning on his cane. “He works _solely_ on predictions and probability, he can’t give you anything solid. On the other hand,” he now approached the tables with some samples, gesturing at them to come closer. “I might have an insight to offer.”

“Yes, Dr. Gottlieb?”

“From samples gathered in Manila six years ago, and from the latest attack, I’m inclined to say that our categorization system might be wrong,” he said, leaning closer. “We put all kaiju to distinct categories because they either look different or because they are simply bigger and more of a threat, but all samples say otherwise. The DNA of every single kaiju piece we own is exactly the same, as if they were clones.”

Newt was now peeking curiously at what his colleague was doing, trying to look as disinterested as possible while doing so. It was not like he was now into Herms’ field, even though yes, he had to admit, all of it _was,_ to some reasonable extent, _interesting,_ but not as interesting as his own work, so-- yup, just this very moment caught his attention, was all.

“What I propose is to examine the very _content_ of the kaiju brain, though I’m aware it sounds bizarre.”

“So like--” Newt chimed in, smiling as right know he _knew,_ he was so damn _certain,_ he had this one, that he knew where Herms was going with this and that Pentecost wouldn’t probably like it, and, and-- “You propose to drift with that leftovers of an alien brain?”

The very idea was absurd to say the least. Crazy. Simply impossible, and even Newt could see that, with that limited biology knowledge he owned. To share minds with an alien tissue? Not even a _complete_ one? The chances it would go more or less like planned were very very _very_ close to zero. It was surprising that Hermann even thought of it being good enough to mention to their supervisors.

However, he _did_ like such ideas. Risky ones. He was never scared of them and even though he knew, _he knew_ what Hermann proposed was insane, he felt that he would, hypothetically, do that. It was both a frightening and an exhilarating possibility.

Hermann sighed, slightly nodding. “I know how it sounds, however seeing how little is left from our forces and how _desperately_ we need this mission to be achieved, I think it’s worth the risk.”

In the end Pentecost asked Newt for his calculations and theories, pointing out that they should be in the _legible_ state, the sight of skewed numbers on chalkboards probably not the best representation of his handwriting.  


* * *  


All his life seemed as if some unknown force thought _you know what, this one, this little one homo sapiens, it’s gotta be hideous because yeah, why not._

He behaved like a child who was given the body of an adult and all it entailed, or at least that was how everybody seemed to perceive him. He couldn’t disagree with some of it, true, but a great part of this _theory_ about him was, well, wrong.

Newt didn’t choose cosmology as his ‘main’ phD solely because he was a great fan of Star Wars and Doctor Who, as many had assumed based on brief chats with him. He chose it because as much as he himself was chaos, a disaster in a skin of a human, the Universe was not.

It was neat and in order. It had its laws, even if people could not yet see them; the lacking human knowledge did not change the way all of it worked – the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, all of the planets in the Solar System and its stars, the Milky Way and millions of other galaxies, so far away that people could only see them back to how they were thousands of years ago.

He _admired_ Universe, how it appeared scary, soulless and haphazard, only to turn out to be the exact opposite. It was _beautiful_ and full of wonders, every single particle exactly where it should be, a perfect harmony.

Nothing on Earth seemed as alluring as the night sky above when his six years old self tried to understand himself and his place in all of this. Everything and everyone could fail, his own self included. Everything despite the Universe. Nature, in its laws, had and would never lie, of that he was certain. And that was grounding. Comforting, in a way. Knowing that nothing could exist without the matter from the outer space and that everything was prone to come back out there, eventually.

A perfect circle.

“Newton,” Hermann asked with that tone of his, somewhere in between annoyed, curious and worried. “Why are you so interested in that proposition of mine? It’s been pretty clear what Marshal found useful.”

“I know,” he said, grabbing a chair from his side and moving it so that he could sit in front of Hermann. The guy couldn’t move much as he was, literally, in the middle of something. Very toxic and jelly-like something.

“So?”

“You proposed drifting with a fragment of kaiju brain,” he started, rolling sleeves of his shirt and uncovering Andromeda, Black Eye, Cosmos Redshift 7 and a few others galaxies on his forearms. “You would not if you didn’t find that possible.”

His colleague gave him a sceptical look but said nothing, probably wanting Newt to continue. So he did.

“As much as I dislike the gruesome part of your field, I cannot stop thinking about implications it can have in other areas, like, if it’s possible to have a neural connection with _an alien,_ wait, _a reptile-resembling alien_ from another _freaking_ dimension _,_ then it may also be possible to gain some insight into their dimension, how it looks and what they know about _their_ universe, and-”

“Newton,” Hermann shut him down with a hand gesture, his white glove covered with bodily fluids. “What’s the real case?”

“What?”

“I know you,” he sighed, taking a step back from the table and taking his dirty gloves off. “For quite a long time, too. What you say is reasonable, yes, but it doesn’t sound like _you._ ” Hermann looks at him, something bittersweet in the way his lips quirk. “So?”

This time Newton is one to sigh. Hermann really was the insightful one, from the two of them.

“I’m _curious,_ Herms,” he answered as honestly as he could, trying to maintain an appearance of a still sane person. “Call me insane all you want but since you first mentioned the idea of the kaiju drift, I can’t _get it out_ of my mind, man. It sounds dangerous as hell, sure, but I _can’t_ stop thinking ‘how it is like out there?’ or ‘would it change the way I look at our universe?’. I just simply cannot, Hermann and you, as you said, _know_ me, so it shouldn’t really come up as a surprise to you that I’m willing to put my life at stake and not to just either prove you wrong or right, but because of my own desires.”

The silence between them lingered and so he probably failed at his ‘don’t appear crazy’ goal. Oh well. Truth be told, he doubted people perceived him as such in the first place so not really a failure in here.

Hermann was looking, no, _staring,_ at him with that unreadable expression, mouth in tight line and eyebrows only slightly furrowed. Newton tried to read from his eyes but it wasn’t an easy task, considering human interactions were _way_ out of his league. Determining the chemical composition of stars so far away the light needed millions of years to reach their little rock planet? Too easy. Trying to find primary black holes? Quality entertainment. But this-- One on one human interaction, in a proximity resembling the one between the nucleus and electron in the sole hydrogen atom? _That_ was a challenge.

“You already know the odds of this ending up successfully,” Hermann finally, _finally,_ said, putting his hand on Newt’s shoulder and squeezing it faintly. “And before you tell me them no, Newton, I do _not_ want to know. I just want to be sure if you are actually aware of what you are volunteering for.”

He smiled, and he hoped it was a reassuring one.

“I know you would never do it yourself, and that’s where I step in.”  


* * *  


He had never thought he would say something like this but here he was, standing in dirt and mud, intestines and all kinds of slimy stuff possible scattered around, his eye bloodshot.

“Hermann, before we do what we gotta do, I want you to know one thing,” he said, putting, this time proper, piece of tech on his head.

“Soon we are about to share thoughts so I don’t think it’s necessary but please continue,” the other man replied, doing the same thing.

“I hate, no wait, _despise_ reptiles, okay, if we ever encounter even a tiny little _lizard_ I swear to, I don’t know, freaking _gravity,_ I’m gonna step on it before you know it and I don’t care it can’t eat me because of its size, and so that you know, if you care about living creatures please, take those that resemble reptiles out of my sight, thank you.”

Hermann snorted, evidently wanting to add something but quickly containing himself, remembering their mission. Right, their mission.

“Are you ready, Newton?”

 _No,_ he wanted to say. _I don’t really want to come back there,_ he wanted to add. What he had seen in that brief moment back in the lab was, well, intense. Literally and metaphorically out of this world. But so so scary, too. Mortifying, making his limbs frozen and weak.

He was just a little human from the tiny planet somewhere in the vast void of space and time, and those creatures hunger his, and not only his, total annihilation. How could somebody _not_ be at least a bit afraid of that?

But this time he was about to enter this nightmare with company.

“As always,” and with that he pressed the button, the entire world spinning and spinning, the whole new reality constantly disappearing and reappearing in front of his eyes.

A rapid journey through space and time, with his body still on the ground where he had left it.  


* * *  


Everyone was celebrating, the ominous clock in the main hole stopping once and for all. There was no room for sobbing or mourning the loss, there would be plenty of time for that. There always was. Too much death and too little joy, people always smiling too little, forgetting their life was meant to end, sooner or later. Always running, working, not sleeping, to stop the upcoming apocalypse.

He and Hermann were no different, really, Newton realised not for the first time. They often acted the way they did not because it was their intention, their aim to hurt one another. It was just a known ground, a twisted way of appreciating one another in that overcrowded space somewhere in the Shatterdome, Hong Kong.

It was a nice change, not to feel so tense and stressed all the time. Being able to _relax,_ even if only a tiny bit. Newton didn’t think it was possible to feel such a relief, to see the positive outcome of their actions. He was an optimist, sure, but he still was somewhat doubtful everything would end up as they had wished for it.

And yet.

“We did it, Herms,” he said to his colleague, hooking him with an arm in the sudden rush of intense emotions. “We saved the world!”

“They saved it,” Hermann corrected him, because he always did. “With some of our help. More yours than mine, to be precise.”

“Oh hell no, man, don’t give me that!” Newt was in no mood to listen to such tone. Nope, only happy talks and smiles, nothing like self-deprecating statements Hermann had just said.

“You’ve seen my thoughts, Newton,” he calmly answered, looking at him with that funny, intense sparkle that did strange things to Newt’s insides. “You know what I’m thinking of all of this. Of my input and yours, how important they were but yours significantly more.”

“Dude, stop,” Newt turned, now standing face to face with Hermann, or maybe rather face to mouth. “Yes, I _know_ what you think of it but you know what I’m thinking, too. Then, you should know it’s pretty much useless to argue with me on that,” he gave him a smile, not really his fullest grin, but nevertheless something tender and, hopefully, reassuring. “We would be kaiju dinner by now if you didn’t come up with an idea of _drifting_ with them, how incredible is that?”

Hermann visibly flushed at the sudden compliment, rolling his eyes to probably hide either his aggravation or embarrassment. Or maybe both.

“My idea would be pretty much useless if _you_ weren’t, well, _yourself,_ Newton. Your usual, irresponsible and daring self.”

Newt snorted, moving somewhat closer to his lab partner but still maintaining that microscopical distance between them. Just so not to end up being swallowed by the gravity that was constantly pulling him closer and closer, even more so since the triple drift a few hours prior. A force so viciously merciless he felt like a lonely particle, being brought straight into the very core of a black hole.

If Hermann noticed his movement, he said nothing. He was standing in the same place, the only ever present constant in Newt’s equation. Variables were coming and leaving, appearing somewhere and then being removed either by him or something else; but Hermann, he was different.

“What do you say for a drink?” Newt proposed, smiling mischievously. It made Hermann snort, his stoic surface cracking. “I have some nice stuff hidden in the lab.”

“As long as it’s not something from Kaidanovsky, sure.”

“What, you have something against their vodka?” Newt said, amused, already taking steps in the proper direction, Hermann following him.

“I’m not sure if I want to know how much ethanol it contains,” he answered. “And, besides, it tastes like hell.”

This time Newton cracked, laughing as they were going down and down, up until they reached their lab. Everything around was quiet, staff, heroes and everyone in between off to the town or somewhere else, celebrating.

Neither of them seemed to mind the silence, though. It was familiar, in a way. Comforting, even.

Just like the vague impression Newt had that, if what he had briefly seen during the drift was true, Hermann felt about Newton the same way Newt felt about him.  


* * *

  
“Herms, why neuroscience?”

He was well into his fourth glass of whiskey, a pleasant burning dispersing inside of his body. He felt relaxed, more, he felt _safe._ For the very first time since the start of kaiju attacks, probably. Utterly and undoubtedly safe.

“I could ask you the same thing about physics and mathematics, Newton.”

“I’ve asked you first.”

Hermann snorted, taking a sip from his glass.

“There is something beautiful in all of this, I suppose?” he said, after taking a moment to think his answer through, “Everything appears to be disorganised and random, and to some extent it is, I admit. But it doesn’t change the framework.”

They decided to take their glasses and go outside, somewhere where they could celebrate without being interrupted. There was time for integrating with others later tonight, they needed – or at least Newton thought so – to be alone, even if for a short while. And so did they choose a spot outside, hidden from people’s eyes but not far enough to stop hearing cheerful shouts and laughs.

“Biology is a form of art where every single piece has to be put in a proper place. If it isn’t, it usually cause a disaster-- but sometimes it leads to something even more amazing and beautiful. Neuroscience just allows me to look beneath the shallow surface, to see how it works. All components always look so _so_ inconspicuous and they almost never are.”

Hermann finished his glass, glancing at him from the side, as if looking for some kind of understanding? Arraignment? Both?

“You certainly break the stereotype of the conventional neuroscientist,” Newt eventually said, pouring them both another round. Because why shouldn’t he? “Those guys are either snobs or passionate enthusiasts, and you are, I don’t know, somewhere entirely else? Not even on the same scale.”

“Thank you?” Hermann raised his eyebrow, as if trying to guess whether he had just been complimented or ridiculed. “I’d say the same about you, too.”

Newton shrugged, his whiskey suddenly fascinating.

“You don’t look like a mathematician, you don’t speak like them, you don’t even _act_ like them and yet, you’re probably one of the most brilliant of them all. It’s astonishing.”

“Hermann!” Newt put his free hand on his chest in the exaggerated manner. “I’m touched!”

The other man snorted, indulging himself in his drink and barely hiding the smile that was crippling on his face.

“You know, I think we are both some human singularities,” Newton said suddenly, prompted by nothing other than this annoying – according to Hermann – habit of speaking just for the very sake of speaking at all. “Laws of the world just don’t apply to us, man.”

“Even if that’s true, I’m pretty sure your liver has a very different opinion about this one because if you keep drinking so much it’s going to get even.”

Newt turned to him, wanting to say something equally snarky and witty, but then he saw with how much fondness Hermann was looking at him. It successfully shut his mouth.

As he could not say anything, taken aback by, well, _everything_ in that exact moment, he did the thing he wanted to do for a very long time.

Hermann did not seem to mind Newt’s hand on his own, dirt and chalk dust on both of them just as bonding as electromagnetic interactions inside atoms.

**Author's Note:**

> "God does not play dice with the universe" was supposed to be said by Einstein, as he disagreed with quantum mechanics and thought it to be a bizarre theory (long story short, quantum theory is based on probability and nothing can be entirely predicted, hence something significant may occur 'by accident').
> 
> Beta by [try_reset](https://archiveofourown.org/users/technorat/)! Thank you friend!  
> You can also find me on [tumblr](http://ee-void.tumblr.com/)!


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